


Living As We Are

by TaFuilLiom



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 23:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: He wants her to take her by the shoulders and tell her Agent Alex Danvers has never been a coward, but she must chose her battles, and if she isn’t ready, she shouldn’t force it just to end up hurting herself. That being said, if keeping it inside is hurting her more, then she should do the right thing.The sequel to 'Fugitives'.





	Living As We Are

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here. This is episodic, set between 2x03 and 2x09, and J'onn knowing the pain Alex is in but wanting her to have space to work it all out herself. Let me know what y'all think.

When Maggie Sawyer first enters the DEO, it’s because Alex is fussing over her. They had rescued her from Scorcher, and both the agent and Supergirl had insisted she come to be checked out.

At first, when he picks up the unusual presence, he marches towards them, intending to give out a stern rebuttal about bringing in outsiders to the base.

But when he gets close enough, he pauses.

He recognises the slight-panic, slight-giddy patterns of Alex; more specifically, when Alex is around a woman that she is attracted to.

If anyone brings strays into work, it is Kara; not Alex.

Whoever this Maggie Sawyer is, she has to be something special.

Very special.

He smiles as he walks away, deciding maybe Maggie Sawyer can be added to the ragtag list of ‘outsiders’ allowed into the DEO after all.  

Later, he watches the detective leave. She has a confident swagger, a whole heart and, from what he can gather as she passes, a bright mind. 

Alex never stood a chance.

~

Over the next few weeks, this Maggie Sawyer creeps into Alex’s train of thinking more and more. At first, they work professionally, a natural respect forged between them as the barriers of jurisdiction and method come down. 

And then Alex’s thoughts start to soften. Detective Sawyer becomes just Sawyer and then just plain Maggie. 

It’s only when the alien fightclub is resolved that the panic sets in. That same all-encompassing whirlwind that sweeps Alex up for hours on end. He finds her pacing her lab, agitated. 

“Alex?”

She bounds over to him. “J’onn, what’s happening?”

He raises an eyebrow. “What’s happening?”

She nods, swinging her arms. “I thought maybe there was an emergency?” He shakes his head, and she sighs and strides away. “I’m just restless, is all.”

He sees the pile of paperwork on her desk, the half-finished colour tests in the tray, the computer still loading scans. Her lack of concentration is uncharacteristic, and he waves her over to lean against the table with him. 

“Did you talk to M’gann?” she asks, taking her place by his side.

“Yes, I did.” He looks at her, as openly as he can. “Has it been on your mind?”

“About you and M’gann? Sure, J’onn.” She nudges his elbow. “I actually do care about you.”

“I was thinking about what I said, about living how I was meant to.”

She nods jerkily. “And? Anything on that front?”

“Being in this body or another form for so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be myself, truly be myself. Finding another Green Martian…” 

He was so eager to merge their minds, to live on Earth as he had lived on Mars. For so long he’s been alone, cut off with all of these notions inside that were impossible to share with a human. 

He imagines that for Alex, being in the closet is something similar. Her eyes sparkle with interest in what he has to say next.

“I know I must respect her wishes. But in doing so, I’ve realised that I have long-buried my own wants, needs…” He shrugs. “Desires. Ones that I have never addressed since I came to Earth, because I have never been able to before.”

“Maybe some people come into our lives for a reason. To challenge us, or shake up our confidences, change the status quo,” Alex suggests, not once thinking of M’gann. He suppresses his amusement as she goes on. “Maybe that’s a good thing?”

“Do you think so?”

She stares off through the lab window at the corridor outside, circling back around to Maggie Sawyer as his words filter through her mind.

Suddenly realising she hasn’t answered him, she comes back to herself. 

“Sure,” she says hastily. “I better get back to this. No point turning on the fumigation cupboard for nothing, right?” 

And he sees it then, right there at the front of her mind. That detective kissing another woman. Alex’s curiosities suddenly crashing into something much, much more bitter. 

_ Sweet child of Earth, _ he thinks sadly.

“I’ll leave you alone with your work,” he says, leaving her. 

For days after, she thinks about that kiss, lets herself wonder about kissing a woman. The biggest breakthrough is that she doesn’t shove it down like she has before. But she’s still so isolated, alone. 

He listens to her struggling, and wonders how he can help without pushing too hard. 

_ Sweet child of Earth. _

~

It happens in three stages. 

_ One _ : Detective Sawyer breaks up with her girlfriend. 

Alex doesn’t know how to process these strange giddy feelings about how she  _ likes _ the fact that Maggie is single now, and yet aches for her new friend in so much pain. He hears her fretting about Maggie’s vulnerability. 

_ Two _ : the detective confronts Alex on her feelings, sending her up in flames.

J’onn can tell by the way she bursts back to the DEO after meeting Detective Sawyer, and the conversation revolves around Alex’s mind again and again. By the time he leaves for an inspection, he can almost replay each word himself.  

Now she’s considering all of those things she used to push away in shame, reassessing her life, reassessing countless interactions. Why did lightly kissing Gemma at a house party in a round of spin the bottle at 17 make her feel like that? Like it was so much more than making out with her boyfriend in the bathroom later that same night?

He offers to spar with her, hoping to quell these jags of emotions; either encouraging her to stop bottling this up, or at least giving her a distraction. The one inescapable place in this world is one’s own mind, he knows, and the environment within Alex’s is not a pleasant place to be right now. 

During the session, he puts her in a chokehold that she has broken a thousand times, and yet this time, she can’t. Eventually she taps out, bending at the knee to catch her breath. 

And he worries.

_ Three _ : when an agent comes into the sparring room and tells of the incident at the NCPD precinct involving multiple fatalities, Alex reacts immediately. Despite the turmoil inside, she gives into that pull towards this woman who captivates her. 

“There’s somewhere I need to be,” she says, and he nods, waving her away. As if he could stop her anyway. 

After those three stages, it happens. 

The next morning, Alex is in a dreamlike state, all of her technical thoughts pettering out in favour of her first day knowing who she  _ really _ is. 

At a briefing, she takes a back seat, and J’onn finds himself listening to her, rather than Agent Benston; she came out to Maggie, admitting what was pent up inside since she was a young girl. She sees everything in a new perspective, lets herself feel attraction rather than shoving it deep down inside, testing out thoughts and feelings at will.

At one point she drops her head into the palm of her hand, thinking about those confusing ideas that hit her when Lucy Lane was around last year.

To him, she is like a rattling pot whose lid was pulled away just before the water boiled over, and now simmers instead. 

For the rest of the work day, he keeps passing her lab, watching her try and read the same paragraph over and over. Each time, she isnt thinking about the report on her tablet. 

She’s thinking about what Maggie’s lips might feel like against hers. 

~

On the plane back from Norway, he watches her sleep fitfully. 

Exhaustion has been painted on her features for the past week. Her mind hasn’t stopped, hasn’t switched off for a second. Whether it’s professional or personal, Alex won’t give herself a break. At certain points, he was brought to the edge, wanting to reach out and calm her mind with his abilities, but it would have been a betrayal of her trust. 

The other agents are concerned with what they saw, one even snarls at the idea that Agent Danvers can even sleep after seeing bodies like that. J’onn wants to bite back, but he doesn’t. 

She is terrified to tell Kara, still trying to work herself out one hundred percent, brimming with self-doubt and self-loathing. 

And then Alex begins to dream, and in the lull of the dark plane, she sparks like a firework ready to go off. He closes his own eyes, reaching out, and becomes awash with vivid images- 

_ Dawn, in an unfamiliar room. Posters adorn the wall. A teenage girl asleep; her slow, even breathing. The feeling of a gut clenching, and confusion about what  _ that _ means-  _

_ “Go back to sleep, Alex.” _

_ “I can’t help it, Vicky, you snore so loud.” _

_ Sleepy laughter- _

_ Older now. A club, thrumming with bass and skin prickling all over. Hands grab at hips, calling for a dance, but the three whiskey shooters on the bar call louder.  _

_ Two girls flirt to the side. With each other?  _

_ Later, they’re making out in the bathroom. That gut clenching again. Throwing up because of alcohol, or- _

_ Older again. A woman who is gorgeous, brilliant, deserving of everything. Her heart is whole and big; is it big enough for two? _

_ A pool table, balls clacking together, fingers brushing and grins as a cue is passed between players, and then a surge of courage to lean down and finally let curiosity run its course- _

And all of a sudden- 

He opens his eyes to see her twitching awake opposite him. In the meagre light from the round bulbs above them, he catches tears shining through. She is raw, cut to the bone, and finally  _ realising _ , suspended thousands of feet in the air. 

Her eyes flick up and catch his steady gaze. 

“Those bodies really messed with me,” she says thickly, almost too quietly for him to hear over the roar of the plane’s engines. She wipes under her eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He smiles tightly, patient with the lie, and looks out of his window. The sun breaks, peeking above the clouds, casting the plane in a red glow. He ponders what kind of day it’s going to be. 

Her face is coated crimson as he hears her wondering too; is this the day she tells her sister and takes the first step into this unknown world? She balls her fists on her thighs. 

He wants her to take her by the shoulders and tell her  _ Agent Alex Danvers has never been a coward _ , but she must chose her battles, and if she isn’t ready, she shouldn’t force it just to end up hurting herself. That being said, if keeping it inside is hurting her more, then she should do the right thing. 

“How long until we’re home?” she asks.

“Less than an hour.”

She rests her head against the round window, not saying another word for the remainder of the journey.

~

He recovers from the parasite, but he knows something is very wrong with him. Caught up in the tornado of grief unburied by the hallucinations, he almost misses everyone else’s dilemmas. 

Most regrettably, he doesn’t realise the throbbing pain Alex is in until he asks her to run some tests on him. The weight on her mind, he discovers fairly quickly, is Maggie’s rejection. She finally knows what those lips feel like against hers, but at what cost?

He sits on the edge of the bed. She ties blue elastic around his arm, pressing her thumb against the crook of his elbow. Satisfied that she can find veins, she goes to grab the equipment tray. 

And all the time, he knows she’s forcing herself into a tunnel of concentration. This task for a bioengineer is banal, but if she can just use it as a start to pushing away everything else...

He winces as the needle slips in, and she gives him a little smile. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s the first smile she’s had in the last few days. 

She fills the first vial, and he squeezes his fist as tight as he can. Then the second. The third is a little harder, and she grimaces as he pumps his hand in and out. 

“M’gann has taught me something very important recently,” he says as she takes the final vial, caps it and labels it. 

“About living your life freely?” she says, writing on the side of the label. 

“Not quite.”

She glances at him, taking off her gloves and fisting them as she picks up the third vial of blood. “What did she teach you?”

“That we must hold our heads up, no matter what we’ve been through. Because we’re still here, we’re survivors. And we’ll live to battle another day.” Alex’s hand stutters with the last vial as she slots it into the tray. He continues, “I don’t know if I believe it myself yet, but I think its an important lesson to teach anyway. Our wounds display our bravery.”

“J’onn,” she whispers, staring hard at the tops of the tray.

_ Tell me, it’s okay- _

“There’s something I-”

“Agent Danvers!” A fidgeting technician lunges into the room, interrupting. “One of the chemicals you requested is out of stock.”

Her face transforms into  _ heated _ annoyance before she swings around. “What do you mean?”

“It’s out of stock. We didn’t order-”

She snatches the sheet from his hand, reading down the list of previous orders. Her lip curls and she fixes a dark gaze on him. 

“Good to know that the DEO’s lab technicians are so incompetent-” She growled, smacking the sheet flat against his chest. “-that not only do they get a bioengineer to conduct basic blood tests, they also can’t manage their stock properly.”

She kicks open the peddle-bin and dumps her gloves inside, sneering, “Congratulations on being the most useless bunch of hires that US government ever took up.”

She stalks away in a furious huff, leaving the technician beetroot and humiliated. J’onn sighs, shaking his head. He should have stepped in, should have stopped her taking out her own frustration on this poor assistant, but selfishly he conserved his energy. 

Besides, he figures she needs to rage, since reminders of Maggie are everywhere. In the conversations she has, at crime scenes, even on the TV as the detective gives a statement. 

He finds her boxing, later, pummeling the bag. Each punch shooting off another sharp thought; 

_ Why am I not good enough _

_ I’m never good enough _

_ For my father _

_ For my mother _

_ For Kara _

_ For her _

_ For her _

_ For- _

She mistimes a jab, the bag swinging wildly towards her. She grapples with it in her arms, steadying both it and her. She ends up hugging it tightly. The pain radiating off of her is so strong, he has to physically turn away.

In the shadows, his hand starts to tremble and transform again. He huffs, and makes his way back to the holding cells. 

~

He knows she’s here before he even encounters her mental presence. 

Alex’s brain activity spikes drastically when she hears that Maggie was injured at L-Corp, and of course she insists the injured woman be brought to the DEO so Alex can assess the wounds.

In the end, it isn’t as bad as it could have been. He detects the relief coming off of Alex in waves, and cocks his head in the direction of the lab. She blusters out and down the stairs, a wide smile on her face. 

“Are you alright, Agent Danvers?” he asks, smirking. 

“I’m okay. Just wanted to check in with mom. And then I’ll…” she jerked her head back up in the direction of the lab. 

“Could you also compare the latest full air toxicity evaluation, and report to me on any changes from the last hour?”

Alex nodded, and then shot off towards where her mother sat with a laptop. J’onn climbs the stairs, agents throwing bits of information at him with each step. He nods at each, nothing giving him pause. They’re running out of time. 

When he appears at the doorway of the lap, Maggie flinches at the sight of him, and he holds up his hands. 

“I am not Cyborg Superman,” he assures.  “I run things at the DEO.” 

She relaxes against the bed. “These drugs better not have me tripping.” 

He chuckles, coming further into the room. Her mind races from one thought to the other, settling for only a second before zooming off in another direction. 

She fidgets with her stitches, asking, “Where did Alex go?”

“She’s going to speak to her mother about breaking down the Medusa virus,” he explains. “I also sent her to get something for me.”

Maggie breaks into a dazzling smile. This woman has tied Alex’s stomach in knots for weeks, and he suppresses his own mirth as he sees for himself why.  

“She’s your errand dog, huh? And here I thought she was a super important agent.”

A laugh rumbles out of him, and he paces slowly around the room with his hands on his hips. “Alex is a spectacular agent.” 

“Yeah,” Maggie agrees, dimming slightly. Her thoughts sink lower, buzzing in confusion. “Have you ever almost died, not-Cyborg Superman?”

“Yes,” he replies, looking down at his boots. “Recently, in fact. Against all odds, Alex found the means to save my life.”

“She’s pretty incredible.” 

“Life is very short on Earth.”  _ It was much longer than on Mars. _ Somewhere he’s been thinking back on a lot lately. Not just the horrors, but before the war, when he was content. “No amount of time is ever enough. Not on this planet, or any other.”

“Make every moment count, right?” Maggie says. “Make it all worthwhile.”

Coming out of his own reverie, J’onn smiles as Maggie’s mind falls into the trap he has laid in the sweetest, gentlest way; when suddenly everything in her mind switches to  _ Alex Danvers _ . 

“A brush with death can give people a very different perspective on life.” 

Maggie plays with the edge of the blue paper gown. “You know, I’ve never been great at the whole self-evaluation thing. I’m impulsive in certain situations.” She looks up at him with mischief dancing in her eyes. “It’s the cop brain.”

“I tend to believe that the results of a leap of faith are occasionally worth facing the fear of the jump.” 

Her confusion ramps up as she frowns. Sensing Alex is returning, he straightens up. “Well, I just wanted to formally introduce myself, Detective Sawyer, and give you my thanks for your service to the city.”

“Alex been yapping about me?”

He smiles at that. “Perhaps she has.”

Maggie plays it off as a joke, but inside, she bursts with affection. When Alex pops back into the lab, she gives him a thorough rundown of the current situation.

“Wow, impressive, Agent Danvers,” Maggie appraises after. “And all in one breath.”

Her confidence stuttering, Alex smiles at her boots and shrugs. “Practise makes perfect. I’ve heard you give the cop talk before.”

Maggie grins. “Yeah, but cops don’t give reports in those skintight outfits. Might make them more interesting in future.”

Alex blushes even further, glancing at J’onn as if he would help her out of her  _ lovesick  _ embarrassment. 

Never has he known someone to get so far under Alex Danvers’ skin like Maggie Sawyer has. 

He intends to let the detective continue.

Trawling through the jungle as Hank Henshaw hunted him, he grew fascinated with the birds of paradise. Having never seen such creatures on Mars, he would watch them for hours, listening to their songs, watching as they became birds of passion. 

Batting around each other in that skittish way birds do, they reminded him of courting My’ria’ah as a younger being, before their love matured and grew rich and deep.

Alex and Maggie are those birds, dancing around each other, flittering around the inevitable. 

But bigger things are of issue right now, so he bids them goodbye and returns to the control station.

If Medusa comes to pass, if he should be reunited with his lost wife and daughters, then so be it. He just hopes that Maggie will heed his words. 

Alex deserves to be happy. 

~

She does heed his words, apparently, because Alex strolls into the DEO for work two days later, buoyant in a way he has only seen from her sister. 

For the whole holiday season, Alex is cheery, even when faced with the prospect of spending Christmas in Midvale with her mother. She comes back refreshed, ready for work, and mentally lighter than she has been in a while. 

Sometimes, when Alex is on her phone, he senses a jolt of nervous excitement, and recognises that this is when Maggie has text her, or vice versa.

And then one day, she is pure anxiety contained in a human frame. She paces, doing as many menial tasks as she can to keep the day full and busy, and he becomes concerned at what she is trying to distract herself from. 

He checks in, and wishes he didn’t. Some of the images causing those nervous flutters inside make him contemplate attempting to mindwipe himself. Still, her fear of not being good enough or scaring Maggie off again permeates the air when she breezes around him. 

He calls in with her in the lab. Her head is hunched over some transcripts, but none of the information is buzzing in her mind. 

Kara beats him to the chase, zipping in behind him. “Hey Alex.”

Startled, the agent swings around in the chair, seeing her boss and sister standing there. She points in accusation. “How long have you two been…?”

Kara looks at him, and back to Alex. “Just now. Why?”

Alex swallows shaking her head. “No reason. Just need to test my reflexes.”

“Your heart has been beating so hard all day,” Kara says, frowning. “I wanted to check up on you.”

“It has?” Alex’s phone vibrates on the desk, and she picks it up. Reading the message, a wide smile stretches across her face. 

“Oh, I get it.” Kara rolls her eyes. “You’re getting all bashful because of texts from Maggie, right?”

“Yes, texts from Maggie,” Alex confirms, holding up her phone. “She’s so...sweet.”

Kara cooes at her, teasing her innocently for a few more seconds before heading out to go to work again. He stands through it all, amused.

Kara Zor-El, so wonderfully naive. He, however, is not, and when Alex makes eye contact with him, her real embarrassment shines. 

“Sweet?” he prods. “Are you sure?”

After that, she scrambles out of his presence at every opportunity.  

The next morning, she calls him to say that she’ll be in late. He says that’s okay, because Agent Alex Danvers never comes in late but she’s never had a reason to, never  _ enjoyed _ a lazy morning with a lover. 

Maggie Sawyer is definitely something special.

He avoids her when she finally arrives to work, shielding himself from her mentally. 

Just incase. 

 


End file.
